


burgeoning

by hyerewolf



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Mild Blood, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyerewolf/pseuds/hyerewolf
Summary: If you're still friends after a breakup, it's because you're either still in love, or never were in love in the first place.Or: Hyunjin and her inability to fall out of love.





	burgeoning

**Author's Note:**

> tw: blood and choking bc that's how hanahaki is y'know
> 
> sorry in advance i guess.

"I love you," Heejin says on the other side of the call. Hyunjin can tell by the way she sounds that she's grinning. "You're the best friend I could ever ask for."

Hyunjin's next breath is ragged but she plays it off as a chuckle. She can feel a familiar, painful tingle in her throat, the taste of iron soon to fill her mouth. She starts looking around her bednight table for a tissue, already feeling sick. Her lungs shudder.

It wasn't always like this.

* * *

At one point in their lives, Hyunjin and Heejin become inseparable, as best friends since the young age of nine usually are. They do everything together, from taking their notes in class, to playing during their days off, crying and pouting for hours when their parents tried to separate them.

Somewhere along the line, between the puberty and the now, maybe at the beginning of high school, the inevitable happens. Hyunjin starts noticing how her heart speeds up whenever Heejin looks into her eyes, or how Heejin's laugh makes her want to scream from the top of the world in the best way possible, or how Heejin's touch makes something warm bloom in her chest. (In hindsight - what a terrible irony.)

She tells Heejin about that during one hot summer, when they're sitting under a tree in a park, a gentle breeze doing the most to ease up the heat, to no avail. 

Heejin laughs that pearly laugh of hers, because she thinks that her friend is joking, once again, just to see her reaction. The laughter dies on her lips when she notices how serious Hyunjin is, unsureness deep in her eyes.

"I like you too," Heejin says after what feels like hours. They share their first kiss that day and Hyunjin couldn't possibly be happier.

* * *

Their last kiss is under the same tree, in the same park, except Hyunjin never thought it would be that, otherwise she would pick a place for their anniversary date a little more carefully.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," says Heejin when they pull away from each other, and though Hyunjin saw it coming from a mile away, it still hurts when it arrives and slaps her in the face. She looks at Heejin with a puzzled expression, wanting her to spell it out for her. She doesn't want to understand.

"I still love you, Hyun, but only as a friend."

Hyunjin thought that all those stories about hearts getting broken were just an exaggeration, but at that moment she swears she feels her heart shattering into pieces, being ripped apart. She takes a ragged, heavy breath, suddenly feeling like her lungs got filled with raw cotton, and nods. "Okay," she manages out despite tears in her eyes and roughness in her throat.

Heejin scoots closer to her, squeezes her arm. "I'll still be there for you, whenever you need me," she says reassuringly, rubbing circles on Hyunjin's back. There are tears welling up in her eyes as well, but those are coming rather from seeing Hyunjin cry than having her own feelings put through a mangler.

Hyunjin nods. "Me too."

She coughs.

There's a drop of blood on her hand.

* * *

It's ironic, Hyunjin thinks, how she has always said that Heejin takes her breath away without even trying, but for the past few weeks she has been doing that in the most literal way possible.

They're sitting in a small cafe, the exact type of place Heejin is into, with its home-like interior and handmade decors. There's some indie music playing soflty in the background, but all Hyunjin can focus on is the girl in front of her, talking animatedly about some exam, or a new person in the yearbook club, or the endangerment of manatees. Hyunjin doesn't personally care about any of those topics, but Heejin does, and so they are the most interesting things she could be listening about. 

Sometimes, though, Hyunjin allows herself to just get lost in the tones of Heejin's deep voice and the way she moves her hands enthusiastically when she's trying to explain something more complex.

"...so when he said-- Hey, Hyun, are you even listening to me?" Heejin snaps her fingers right in front of Hyunjin's nose and successfully snaps her out of her dream-like state. 

"Of course," says Hyunjin in a tone that totally suggests otherwise. Heejin raises her eyebrow, as if challenging her.

"Student council." Hyunjin takes a shot in the dark, picking one subject out of many possibilities. Heejin slaps her arm with a huff.

"You just guessed it!"

"Did not." Hyunjin pointedly takes a sip of her coffee. The hot liqiud burns at the scratches in her throat. She smiles through it.

Heejin huffs but lets it slide, going right back into her story, and Hyunjin smiles brighter, letting herself enjoy how Heejin's deep voice rises and falls when she's talking about things that make her happy.

(She tries not to think that it was how she used to talk about her, too.)

* * *

When Chaewon first hears about Hyunjin's condition, she gets almost happy, as if it wasn't an obvious death sentence. 

Everyone knows what hanahaki meant, even if the science isn't sure why it happens to some people and not the others. The doctors are looking for a cure, something less invasive than what the operation can offer right now, but it's been futile so far.

"It means you're moving on, right? That there's someone new?" Chaewon is hopeful, almost too much, and Hyunjin hates that she has to ruin this.

All it takes is one painful smile from Hyunjin and a look into her hollow eyes to make her friend's shoulders slump.

"Oh no," says Chaewon, "no, no, Hyunjin, oh no, I'm so sorry..."

Hyunjin shrugs. _Sorrys_ won't change anything, even if she apprieciates the sentiment.

"Does she know?" Chaewon asks suddenly, her voice quiet.

The question catches Hyunjin off guard. She looks at Chaewon like she's an alien.

"Of course not," she says after a while, measuring her words. She falls silent for a moment. "I mean, I didn't tell her. How would I? _Hey, I know we broke up a month ago and you want to be just friends, but I still love you so much it's literally killing me_?" Hyunjin lets out a hollow chuckle. "She might've noticed, but didn't say anything."

Chaewon doesn't say anything to that, just hugs her for the longest time. Hyunjin feels her friend's tears dampening her shirt at one point, but doesn't say anything either. She just feels empty.

* * *

Hyunjin coughs again and again and again, feeling a petal still stuck to her throat. It's a thing she got used to, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable.

"I'll be... Water..." she croaks as she stands up from where she's sitting surrounded by worksheets on Chaewon's floor and stumbles to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of tap water that she drinks in one go. And then another, to take it with her back to her friend's room. 

"It's not healthy," sing-songs Chaewon, not even looking up from her worksheets. She has four different tables spread in front of her, but judging by the way she's tapping her pencil's dull end on her knee, none of them are of any help.

"Life's not healthy," Hyunjin sing-songs back, sitting down. She pulls her notebook back onto her lap, hoping her phone's screen won't light up again and she won't experience another coughing fit. Heejin should stop sending her those cute selfies. Or maybe Hyunjin should stop looking at them.

They sit in relative silence for a while, pencils scratching on paper, before Chaewon speaks up, "Have you thought about--"

"We're not having this conversation right now," says Hyunjin before the blonde even finishes her question. Chaewon raises her hands up in defeat.

"Okay. Okay." She sighs, a crease forming between her brows. "What did you write in point six?"

"Bold of you to assume I wrote _anything_."

* * *

She did think about it. A lot, in fact. It's the first thing she looks up after she comes to realize what her condition meant and that it wasn't going to just go away one day like all of her colds or the flu.

A quick Naver search brings several new questions and one solid answer that Chaewon refuses to believe as much as Hyunjin refuses to change. 

"Are you really not going to give it a try?" The blonde girl is livid. She arrived minutes after getting Hyunjin's dry, bare minimum text and is now pacing around her room, hands flying.

"I'd have to give up all of my memories involving her, Chae," says Hyunjin calmly, as if she wasn't discussing her own death. She doesn't even bat an eye to the trail her friend is slowly walking in her fluffy carpet, too preoccupied with lying in bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. "I'd have to give up most of my life, and for what?"

She knows she should feel _something_ \- preferably sadness or desperation, but _anything_ would do. Instead, Hyunjin feels numb at best, like the life was sucked out of her.

* * *

She only comes to life around Heejin, which is yet another example of that cruel irony, she thinks. 

Heejin is humming a happy tune as they walk through a park, slight bounce in her steps - an obvious sign of her having a good day. Hyunjin watches her, quietly eating her ice cream, taking in the way sunshine reflects on Heejin's soft hair.

"You seem happy today," she finally says, against the gut feeling telling her it's a bad idea.

Heejin nods. "Got a date later today." Her smile is briliant, warm like the sun lighting up her face.

Hyunjin loves this smile and hates how it makes her feel.

"Really?" she asks politely, trying her best to ignore how the taste of iron mixes with the taste of ice cream in her mouth.

"Yes! He's really cute, and charming, and we're going to eat a dinner together in that new restaurant."

Hyunjin's lungs feel like they're coming apart at the seams, heavy with the growth, her breathing growing heavier with each passing milisecond. She still manages to smile and wish Heejin good luck on the date.

She tries to be a good friend, after all, even if that means she later throws up behind a bush, petals and stems and red blood sinking into the green grass.

* * *

Heejin drags her to a mall one day, because she needs a new outfit for her next date. Hyunjin knows it's a bad idea, but she agrees anyway, already feeling Chaewon's disappointed gaze on the back of her neck.

She's sitting in front of the changing rooms, waiting for Heejin to come out in what would probably be the seveth dress she tried on today. She's playing on her phone in an attempt to both make kill the time and distract herself.

"How do I look?"

When Hyunjin raises her eyes, Heejin is spinning right in front of her, a flowy cream dress spinning with her. Hyunjin bites her tounge, not letting the first words that come to her mind spill out.

"Great. He'll love it." She forces a smile.

Heejin looks at herself in the mirror, tilts her head. She sighs. "It would look better with a blazer, but I don't have enough money." 

"I could lend you mine," says Hyunjin before even thinking.

"Really? Oh my God, Hyun, I love you," squeals Heejin. She bounces over to the other girl and hugs her tightly. Hyunjin smiles, even though her lungs convulse and the familiar taste of iron fills her mouth. She tries to take a breath, but she might as well have a ball of cotton shoved down her windpipe.

She knows Heejin will be the death of her, literally, but she's okay with that.

She tries to appreciate the colors of the petals she coughs up onto her palm, their dimmed yellows and pastel pinks caked with dark red blood.

**Author's Note:**

> it would be easier if i hated you


End file.
